Rev. Charles J. Terpstra

This article appeared in The Standard Bearer, Vol. 76; No. 2; October 15,
1999. Rev. Terpstra is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Holland,
Michigan

It is probably well known that the Reformation did
not develop Christian doctrine in the area of eschatology very
strongly. In part this was due to the fact that, in general, the
Reformers accepted the long-standing, amillennial eschatology
of Augustine set forth c. AD 400. And partly this was due to the
fact that the various doctrines that belong to eschatology were
not all that controversial at the time of the Reformation. An
exception to this was the chiliast error (literal millennialism,
i.e., thousand-year reign of Christ on earth) that arose again
in the church, this time in the Anabaptist camp. The Reformers
rejected this, as had Augustine twelve centuries earlier and the
church consistently thereafter. Perhaps another controversial
area was the Reformers' view of the Antichrist, whom most believed
to be the Roman Catholic papacy.

This is not to say, however, that the Reformers did
not have a firm, orthodox belief of the last things. They certainly
did, as other articles in this special issue demonstrate. In simple,
straightforward fashion they followed the teaching of Scripture
concerning the hope of the church. They understood this present
age to be the so-called millennium of
Revelation 20:1-6 and the
last before the return of Christ. They believed the end of this
age would be marked by increasing wickedness in the world and
apostasy in the church, culminating in the rise of the antichrist.
They held to the personal, visible, glorious coming (only one!)
of Christ when all things were full according to God's counsel.
They embraced the truth of the bodily resurrection of all the
dead, the final, public judgment, and the re-creation of the heavens
and the earth by Christ upon His return. And they believed the
everlasting states of the righteous and wicked - unending bliss
with God in the new creation for the former, and unending torment
in hell for the latter. The Reformation doctrine of the last things
may be seen (and read), for example, in the brief but beautiful
thirty-seventh article of the Belgic Confession.

Yet what we are saying here is that the Reformers
did not develop the doctrines of eschatology, at least
not very far. Witness the fact that neither Luther nor Calvin
produced a commentary on the book of Revelation. They basically
repeated what the church had held for over a thousand years. We
may also say concerning this that it was not God's purpose that
they should develop doctrine in this area. His purpose with them
was otherwise, namely, to return the church to the heart of the
gospel - the doctrines of sovereign grace - and to reform her
organizationally and liturgically according to the Scriptures.
In God's wisdom it would fall to the church in future generations
to develop the truths of eschatology. This is indeed what has
happened. And, we believe, this development is still continuing.

Our intention in this article is to point out this
subsequent development of Reformed eschatology. Our focus is on
development of the amillennial view, because this is the
position which this writer and the PRC hold, believing it to be
the truth of God's Word.

Having said this, one can hear some of our readers
snickering at the writer's apparent ignorance of developments
in the area of eschatology. "Developments in amillennialism?!
Hardly," many would say. "Amillennialism is dead and
buried! The progress in the doctrine of the last things has been
in the premillennial and postmillennial camps," they would
argue. And there is no question that these teachings have dominated
the modern church-doctrinal scene. Yet it is our contention that
these views are departures from the classic Reformed-biblical
position, and that in spite of all the attention paid to these
views amillennialism has not only quietly survived but also powerfully
thrived. Amillennialism is alive and well! It simply has not received
the attention which it deserves. Amillennial teaching has made
progress precisely because it has had to contend with premillennialism
and postmillennialism. And though it has for that reason had to
be negative in much of its presentation, yet amillennialism has
developed positively too.

Perhaps a brief listing of prominent amillennialists
in the last century will help us to appreciate this fact. After
all, the "pre's" and "post's" are not the
only ones with whom we amillennialists should be familiar. For
every "Darby" and "Scofield" in premillennialism,
for every "Warfield" and "Kik" in postmillennialism,
there is an amillennialist to answer. We mention a select few
here, along with their writings where pertinent. Among the Dutch
Reformed there are Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920); Herman Bavinck
(1854-1921; The Last Things: Hope for This World and the Next,
1996. This is part of an English translation of his Gereformeerde
Dogmatiek, 1895-1901); Albertus Pieters (The Lamb, The
Woman, and the Dragon, 1937); Louis Berkhof (Systematic
Theology, 1941); William Hendriksen (More Than Conquerors,
1939; The Bible on the Life Hereafter, 1959); Herman Hoeksema
(Reformed Dogmatics, 1966; Behold He Cometh, 1969);
Anthony Hoekema (The Bible and the Future, 1979). Among
Presbyterians we may note Robert L. Dabney (Lectures in Systematic
Theology, 1878), Geerhardus Vos (Pauline Eschatology,
1930), William C. Robinson (Christ the Hope of Glory, 1945),
George Murray (Millennial Studies, A Search for Truth,
1948), Jay Adams (The Time Is At Hand, 1966), and William
E. Cox (Amillennialism Today, 1966). While there are variations
in the details of the amillennial position set forth by these
men, all held to and advanced the basics of the historic amillennial
position of the church.

But to move on, we ought to note in what areas amillennial
teaching has developed since the Reformation. What are some of
the distinctive elements of Reformed eschatology? In the first
place, we may mention its emphasis on the sovereignty of
God. Being one of the cardinal tenets of Reformed theology, God's
absolute sovereignty has also been an inseparable part of her
doctrine of the last things. The doctrine is applied to eschatology
in several ways. For one thing, the sovereignty of God is applied
to the very idea of the end of all things. Reformed amillennialism
teaches that if all things have their beginning in God (and they
do, for He is the sovereign Creator of all things!), then they
also have their end in Him. God is the Source of all things and
He is the Goal of all things. This means that all things, including
the end of the world, have their meaning and purpose in God. From
this comes the idea of the consummation of all things, that God
is leading all things to a "wrapping up," a "bringing
together," indeed to a climax of His sovereign purpose, which
is His own glory through the full redemption (glorification) of
His elect church and the renewal of His entire creation in Jesus
Christ. Thus, Reformed eschatology ties the end of all things
to the sovereign, eternal counsel of God (predestination) and
to His almighty providence in time and history. H. Hoeksema writes,
for example, in his Reformed Dogmatics:

...The consummation of all things presupposes a willing and decreeing
God, Who is before all things, and Who made all things according
to His own counsel unto a definite end and purpose, and Who by
that counsel controls and guides all things unto the end He has
in mind. Without the presupposition of this counsel of a personal
God the world can have no purpose and no destination unto which
it was called into being. And without an all-ruling providence,
according to which God controls all things according to His good
pleasure, there cannot possibly be any definite line or stability
in the development of all things, and there is no guarantee that
they will attain to the purpose unto which they were called into
being (Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1966, p. 737).

Reformed eschatology also stresses the sovereignty
of God in connection with the powers of darkness that rise up
against the Lord and seek to frustrate His purpose with all things,
especially in the end. Rejecting the dualism taught by paganism
and by much of the church-world, the Reformed faith holds that
God is absolutely sovereign also over all the evil in the world.
He is Lord of Satan and his hosts, Lord of the ungodly nations
and peoples, Lord of all sin and darkness, Lord of Antichrist
and all his forces. Being Lord over them, He uses them for the
accomplishing of His own purpose. All the rantings and ragings
of the beast against God and His people only serve to fulfill
His will. It is right here that Reformed eschatology provides
the believer with great comfort and peace as he lives in these
last days. Nothing and no one can possibly overthrow his God and
thwart His purposes! His cause is and will be triumphant! And,
therefore, every elect child of God will reach the goal of his
salvation.

In the second place, we may mention that Reformed
eschatology is covenantal in focus. Covenant theology has
always been an important part of the Reformed faith. So too the
doctrine of the covenant has been brought to bear upon the doctrine
of the last things in Reformed amillennialism. The eternal purpose
of God concerning all things is viewed in connection with God's
eternal covenant of grace with His people in Christ, a covenant
that embraces all of creation too. Christ, the Head of the church
and creation and the Mediator of the covenant, is at the center
of God's eternal purpose with all things. All that God has done
in the past, is doing in the world now, and will do yet in the
future is for the realizing of His covenant plan in Christ. The
end (goal) to which all things are leading is the realization
of God's gracious covenant of redemption in Christ. When the end
comes in the return of Christ, God's covenant will be complete.

It was especially H. Hoeksema who developed this
covenantal eschatology. While other Reformed theologians before
him certainly applied the doctrine of the covenant to eschatology
(H. Bavinck is a case in point), Hoeksema wove it throughout the
whole of theology and thus made it the warp and woof of eschatology
as well. He did so in connection with his biblical development
of the idea of the covenant itself, that it is in its essence
the bond of living friendship and fellowship with His people in
Christ. This truth he applied to the doctrine of the last things,
so that, for example, when he wrote on
Revelation 21:1-4, he said,

Heaven and earth, therefore, shall be united in Christ. The New
Jerusalem shall have its abode on earth, yet it shall inhabit
all creation. And the whole creation shall be heavenly, made like
unto the risen Lord. In that new creation all things shall be
perfectly adapted to serve the resurrected and glorified church
in Christ, in order that we may serve our God and enjoy the fellowship
of His covenant forever and ever (Behold He Cometh, p.
677).

Such a covenantal emphasis reveals the unity of God's
purposes throughout the ages and casts a warm, relational light
on the doctrine of the last things. What bliss beyond compare
the church looks forward to according to the purposes of her faithful,
covenant Father!

A third distinctive element of Reformed eschatology
is its sober, balanced interpretation of prophecy. A proper
hermeneutic of both Old Testament and New Testament prophecy is
essential to and characteristic of Reformed amillennialism. It
takes a careful, comprehensive approach to understanding the prophetic
words of Scripture, avoiding the crass literalism and false dispensationalism
of premillennialism on the one hand, and the inconsistent interpretation
of postmillennialism on the other hand. Over against these, amillennialism
has recognized the unique features of biblical prophecy, that
it has elements which are to be taken literally, historically,
symbolically, and spiritually. It has also maintained, developed,
and applied two important Reformation principles: 1) that the
Scriptures present a unified revelation of God; and 2) that Scripture
interprets Scripture. In harmony with these principles, Reformed
amillennialism stresses that Old Testament prophecy must be understood
in the light of the New Testament, and New Testament prophecy
in the light of the whole of Scripture. This applies, for example,
to those Old Testament prophecies which were spoken to Old Testament
Israel as a nation and seem to promise her yet future, earthly
blessings, but which, when interpreted in harmony with the New
Testament Scriptures, are seen to be fulfilled in the church and
in her future glorification in the new heavens and earth at the
second coming of Christ.

H. Bavinck does a masterful job of laying out this
proper Reformed hermeneutic in chapters four and five of his book
The Last Things, especially in opposition to the chiliast
interpretation of Old Testament prophecy. We give here a brief
example of the Reformed interpretive approach in Bavinck's words:

The New Testament views itself...as the spiritual and therefore
complete and authentic fulfillment of the Old Testament. The spiritualization
of the Old Testament, rightly understood, is not an invention
of Christian theology but has its beginning in the New Testament
itself. The Old Testament in spiritualized form, that is, the
Old Testament stripped of its temporal and sensuous form, is the
New Testament.

All Old Testament concepts shed their external, national-Israelitish
meanings and become manifest in their spiritual and eternal sense
(in the New Testament, CJT).

Therefore the New Testament is not an intermezzo or interlude,
neither a detour nor a departure from the line of the Old Covenant,
but the long-aimed-for goal, the direct continuation and the genuine
fulfillment, of the Old Testament (Baker, 1996, pp. 96-98).

These, then, are a few of the distinctive features
of Reformed amillennialism as it has developed since the Reformation.
May the Lord be pleased to spread the knowledge of the true
hope of the saints far and wide!